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Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Teeccino Winners and Date-Sweetened Ice Cream

**If you landed here via Tastespotting looking for the Teeccino review, you can find it here. Sorry! I entered the wrong URL when I submitted my picture!

How fun! Congrats to all 50 winners! I just realized that I didn't ask Ashley (the sweet Teeccino elf behind this giveaway) if she was OK with me posting her email address here for all to see. So you can email me your mailing address and I will happily forward it to Teeccino so they can send you the goods. I promise not to sell your info to the devil.

1. In a small pot or sauce pan, combine the dates and the water and bring to a boil.
2. Remove from heat and let the dates soak, covered, for 15 minutes.
3. Pour the coconut milk into your blender, add the vanilla and the dates along with their water. Blend until smooth.
4. Transfer the blended mixture into a bowl (with a spout, you'll thank me later!) using a fine mesh strainer to catch little bits of date that might have been left unblended. Refrigerate for an hour or until cold.
5. Once cold, use a fine mesh strainer again (I'm really not happy about tiny bits of date in my smooth ice cream) to pour the mixture into the bowl of an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's directions. It takes my awesome Cuisinart about 30 minutes to churn this bad boy.

NOTES:

This is plenty sweet for my taste, but if you like a sweeter ice cream you can always add some maple syrup.

I always have a can or two of coconut milk in the fridge, that way if I need to make a quick ice cream or whipped cream I don't have to wait for the milk to chill. If you're making this ice cream with room temperature coconut milk, the ice cream mixture will probably need to chill in the fridge for a couple of hours instead of just one.

Keep it in the freezer (O rly?) and take it out a few minutes before serving. It will be way to hard to scoop straight out of the freezer! One of these days I'm going to buy some vodka and I'm going to add a little splash to my ice creams just to see what happens. It shouldn't freeze so hard if it has some vodka in it, right?

Oh, and I've used the lite coconut milk to make ice cream, and it works! I've heard that adding alcohol helps with the freeze factor, but my ice cream rarely has that freeze solid problem....maybe because it doesn't last long enough to freeze?

This is absolutely my kind of dessert! I love using dates as a natural sweetener, and this vegan ice cream sounds delicious. I recently made an "ice cream" using almond milk with a touch of vodka, and it froze noticeably less hard that versions I've tried without the alcohol. I definitely recommend that technique for a softer, more scoop-able consistency.

I love the sound of ice cream sweetened with dates. I used to have a muffin recipe (which I am 99% sure was also vegan) that involved making a date puree as a sweetener of sorts and it was delicious so I imagine this would work well. You are always so creative!

I love the sound of ice cream sweetened with dates. I used to have a muffin recipe (which I am 99% sure was also vegan) that involved making a date puree as a sweetener of sorts and it was delicious so I imagine this would work well. You are always so creative!

I made this a little while ago, and absolutely loved it! I was inspired to make a lighter version, which I am going to work on today. I will be posting my version on my website soon - with a link back to your recipe, of course :). Thanks for the inspiration!

This is heaven on earth!!!!!!! Made it as stated, added a splash of Vodka to keep it from getting too hard. THANK YOU for this recipe! There are just some times of the month you need a little ice cream and now I can have some and stay Paleo!